'Rick and Morty' Season 4 Episode 8 Review: Rick teaches Morty a lesson and proves he will have no redemption
Spoilers for 'Rick and Morty' Season 4 Episode 8 'The Vat of Acid Episode'
It was supposed to be a simple exchange of crystals, but obviously, in the 'Rick and Morty' universe, nothing goes according to plan (except — and this has been proven time and again — Rick's plans). When this exchange goes horribly wrong, Rick has a plan in place — the duo has to jump inside a vat of acid and fake their deaths. Rick might have been over-prepared for this plan, but they eventually escape their deaths by actually killing the other party. Morty, however, doesn't like the plan and berates it. Once home, he asks Rick why he never works on his ideas.
A shouting match later, Rick creates a device that allows Morty re-dos by saving a point in time so he could revisit them, like in a videogame. And so, Morty lives out several of his fantasies from pulling his teacher's pants down and flirting with Jessica to trying multiple samples of ice cream. He then meets a young and lives out a whole relationship complete with meeting the parents, an almost-break upstage, a surprise trip, a tragic plane crash and luckily surviving it. But then, Jerry ends up pushing the button by mistake and Morty finds himself back before this all. He then tries to kill himself after he fails at wooing his lover again.
He then goes back to Rick to tell him how one has to live with consequences and even a re-do device cannot help you escape. Rick plays out his devious plan — every time Morty pressed the button, he burned through his alternate selves, killing them. Morty ended up killing many Mortys across different universes — all part of a lesson Rick was teaching him. After the last few episodes, the series has brought back Rick's selfish self. With 'The Vat of Acid Episode', Rick is back to teaching Morty a lesson in his most twisted manner.
He was confident in the fact that Morty will somehow end up in a situation that will snatch everything away from him. He only supplied Morty with the means. When Morty returned to him with a new perspective, he laughed in his face and told explained his grand scheme to his grandson. Even as Rick is proved to be the ultimate villain in Morty's life, the episode does Morty good with a nice, silent movie romantic plot. Safe to say, it is perhaps the best one this season. 'Rick and Morty' Season 4 airs Sundays at 11.30 pm EST on Adult Swim.